Tag: Young-adult fiction

Hey, blogger friends, listen up! I’ve got a chance for you to receive a free eBook and to compete for over $750 in prizes, and it’s so easy to participate. Read on for more…

Novel Publicity is currently recruiting for one of our gigantic whirlwind tours. YAY! Each whirlwind tour boasts hundreds of dollars in cash prizes and autographed books, sometimes even Kindle Fires. NP also provide eBook copies for all reviewers. This time, they’re touring the debut YA novel by Stephanie Fleshman, Render.

Choose to be one of the first to read this awesome new book, or, instead, host an excerpt, interview, or guest post. That’s right, you don’t even have to read the books to participate–although that’s definitely an option. Novel Publicity will provide your choice of a pre-formatted excerpt, interview, or guest post to make participation easy.

Koldan Holdt knows what he wants. The problem is his future was decided the day he was born—a future void of everything he has ever known.

Days before summer vacation, Koldan’s grandfather suddenly dies, leaving the consequences that have followed him since he fled his country to fall to Koldan. As Koldan learns about his new fate, he must accept the terms to which he is bound and live without the one person he wants, or remain true to who he is and risk both their lives repeating the choices his grandfather made.

Seventeen-year-old Raya Whitney thought she knew Koldan…until a sudden turn of events threatens both their lives. While she is not willing to give up without a fight, she knows it is a deadly game to stay together.

When Native American Fredricka ‘Fred’ Oday is invited to become the only girl on the school’s golf team, she can’t say no. This is an opportunity to shine, win a scholarship and go to university, something no one in her family has done.

But Fred’s presence on the team isn’t exactly welcome — especially not to rich golden boy Ryan Berenger, whose best friend was kicked off the team to make a spot for Fred.

But there’s no denying that things are happening between the girl with the killer swing and the boy with the killer smile…

GET HOOKED ON A GIRL NAMED FRED.

review :

I have to admit that I was really surprised by how much I loved this book! I really don’t read many contemporary books unless it’s something written by Sarah Dessen or one that I’ve read enough good things about that I just need to get my hands on it. With Hooked, there was the added strike against it that I generally don’t enjoy golf, playing or watching it. I don’t have the best memories of it, so I thought it’d be a real testament to the book if it could make me get over the little interest I had in one of its plot points. What I did want to read about, though, was how she was going to make it on an all boy’s golf team. I love hearing about girls who are passionate enough about sports that they have to go out for them, even if there aren’t any other girls going for it!

Needless to say, Liz Richera proved me wrong and made me really rethink how I read. The characters really carried this story to the point where it didn’t really matter what sport they played. All that mattered was that Fred had a dream and was facing a lot of obstacles to achieve it and get herself a better life.

I also really loved how Fred was a Native American girl living on a reservation. I’m going to have to assume that this was an accurate depiction of life in that area because I really know nothing else about it. I liked that she stood by and had such strong beliefs, even if the outsiders wouldn’t understand and thought that it was all odd. She had all of the people from the reservation cheering her on and then she had me cheering her on as well!

The only thing that really felt forced about this novel was the ‘bad guy’. I say it like that because it kind of felt like a stretch to make someone snap that far, so suddenly, but it didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment of the book. Fred and Ryan would have been great to read about even without any dangerous drama involved.

I highly recommend this book to any contemporary fans and anyone looking for a good, quick read with great characters and an inspiring storyline.

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Hello everyone! Today I’m excited to show you the cover of Jamie Scott’s coming-of-age story, Little Sacrifices. Some of you might better know this author as Michele Gorman, a chick lit author now presenting this YA novel. Here’s a little more about the author:

Known for her best-selling chick lit (the Single in the City series and Bella Summer Takes a Chance), Michele also writes coming-of-age fiction under the name Jamie Scott and today sees the re-launch of her first novel, Little Sacrifices. This atmospheric, evocative depiction of the American South may just be the perfect summer read for fans of The Secret Life of Bees or To Kill A Mockingbird.

To me this book seems like a very interesting, thought provoking book different from most I see in the YA section these days. Here’s the summary:

How much would you risk to stand up for your beliefs?

When the Powell family moves to Savannah Georgia in the late 1940s, they hope against hope that they’ll be welcomed. But they’re Northerners and worse, they’re civil rights advocates almost a decade too early. The American South is deeply segregated.

At first their daughter, May, can pretend they’re the same as everyone else. It means keeping quiet when she knows she should speak up, but it’s worth the sacrifice to win friends. Unfortunately her parents are soon putting their beliefs into action. And when they wake to find that they’re the only family on the block with a Ku Klux Klan cross blazing on their front lawn, the time comes for them to finally decide between what’s easy and what’s right.

Doesn’t that sound interesting? The time period this is set in is one I’m really interested in and there aren’t many authors going for that these days. I think everyone needs to give historical fiction a try.

memorable quote : She did not know that the wolf was a wicked sort of animal, and she was not afraid of him.

favorite characters : wolf & scarlet

summary:

The fates of Cinder and Scarlet collide as a Lunar threat spreads across the Earth…

Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She’s trying to break out of prison—even though if she succeeds, she’ll be the Commonwealth’s most wanted fugitive.

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit’s grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn’t know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother’s whereabouts, she is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner.

review :

Oh. My. Goodness. I could NOT wait to read this book after I read Cinder. I took such a long time getting my hands on the first book that I didn’t delay in running off to get the sequel as soon as I was finished. Now, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not because I can’t quite read Cress, book three, yet. Not until 2014. 2014.

This book introduces another set of main characters, the two most exciting to me being Scarlet and Wolf. Again this sci-fi take on a fairy tale surprised me. Wolf . . oh! He gave me all of the lovely, fluttery, agonizing emotions that make me wish his character was real so I could date him. He’s just so adorable, even though he’s also lethal and mysterious and did I mention lethal? Prince Kai never gave me so many feels in Cinder but I can forgive him because Wolf more than makes up for that!

But even before Wolf was fully introduced to the story I was in love because there was another kick-ass heroine to love. Scarlet isn’t going to let anything stand in the way of her rescuing her grandmother even when she realizes that investigating this further could get herself killed and doesn’t even guarantee her grandmother’s freedom. It’s really awesome how she’s been through so much and is such a great girl. Plus she never loses her signature red hoodie!

Cinder’s story picks up just where it left off in book one and I’m so, so happy to see how tough and awesome she is. Not that she wasn’t before but it’s so easy to see how she’s growing and changing because of all of these events and revelations. Even if she has to deal with an annoying partner in crime, who I thought was hilarious!

You really, really need to read this book and you won’t regret it. I promise! Stars, it’s great.

At first, I merely saw his face, his hands on the window ledge. Then, his whole body as he swung himself through the window. Only I could not see what he swung on.
Until, one day, I told my dream self to look down. And it was then that I saw. He had climbed on a rope. I knew without asking that the rope had been one of my own tying.

Rachel is trapped in a tower, held hostage by a woman she’s always called Mama. Her golden hair is growing rapidly, and to pass the time, she watches the snow fall and sings songs from her childhood, hoping someone, anyone, will hear her.

Wyatt needs time to reflect or, better yet, forget about what happened to his best friend, Tyler. That’s why he’s been shipped off to the Adirondacks in the dead of winter to live with the oldest lady in town. Either that, or no one he knows ever wants to see him again.

Dani disappeared seventeen years ago without a trace, but she left behind a journal that’s never been read, not even by her overbearing mother…until now.

A #1 New York Times bestselling author, Alex Flinn knows her fairy tales, and Towering is her most mind-bending interpretation yet. Dark and mysterious, this reimagining of Rapunzel will have readers on the edge of their seats wondering where Alex will take them next!

review :

I’ve loved all of Alex Flinn’s fairy tale retellings and when I heard she was doing one based on the tale of Rapunzel I was overjoyed. I love Disney’s Tangled and wanted to see what one of the most well-known names out there in modern fairy tales could do with the story. I was excited for the creativity, how the girl would react to being saved, what the evil villain would be like . . Towering was nothing like what I expected and not really in the best of ways.

First of all, and a little thing too that probably only annoyed me, I was kind of hoping for a more romantic, fairy tale name for the heroine rather than Rachel. Second, in the book she mentions that she can clearly see a lake from her tower and can see people there in the summer, etc. The town that this story is set in is one where everybody knows everybody else and there’s practically nothing to do. Don’t tell me that no bored group of teenagers wouldn’t go and investigate a tower that they can see out in the woods, even if it does seem abandoned. It kind of seems impossible that no one but Wyatt could have ever found it.

I didn’t really feel the entire evil plot going on, either. It was an interesting take on things but just didn’t work for me. It seemed too little and insignificant, contained in that small town. At times it just felt . . off.

I did like how Wyatt was with Rachel, being so kind and gentle and allowing her to experience things that she’d never had before because she’d been kept up in that tower because of Mama. I loved hearing about his past and what had brought him to stay in that place, so far away from home and everything he’d ever known. That said, I do hope that I enjoy Alex Flinn’s next book more than I did this one. I’d recommend checking out another of her tales before trying Towering.

memorable quote : “Books are easily destroyed. But words will live as long as people can remember them.”

favorite characters : adam & kenji

summary :

tick
tick
tick
tick
tick
it’s almost
time for war.

Juliette has escaped to Omega Point. It is a place for people like her—people with gifts—and it is also the headquarters of the rebel resistance.

She’s finally free from The Reestablishment, free from their plan to use her as a weapon, and free to love Adam. But Juliette will never be free from her lethal touch.

Or from Warner, who wants Juliette more than she ever thought possible.

In this exhilarating sequel to Shatter Me, Juliette has to make life-changing decisions between what she wants and what she thinks is right. Decisions that might involve choosing between her heart—and Adam’s life.

review :

I have waited so long to read this book! I read Shatter Me last year and it gripped me immediately; I loved the colorful and embellished writing style and couldn’t wait to read more about Juliette and Adam. At the end of book one there are so many exciting revelations that set up the sequel to be much different from what I ever could have imagined it to be when I first started reading. There were so many new, interesting characters to learn about as well as a new villain and, of course, Warner returns.

I love how the writing style has evolved as Juliette changes and grows stronger. It’s less centrally focused as she comes out of her shell and less whimsical as she’s forced to face reality for maybe the first time in her life. She’s found people who might come to accept her if she gives them the chance. I think it’s really brilliant, how Tahereh Mafi manages to pull this off so smoothly and seamlessly and doesn’t interrupt the flow of the plot at all. Unravel Me is more fast-paced than the first book. Now that everything has been set up it’s time for action and I can’t wait to see how that climaxes in the next and final book in the trilogy.

I’ve always had a thing for characters with superpowers, even more so when they’re flawed and the reader really gets to see the changes the character has to make throughout the book. As a rather shy person myself, it’s awesome having a leading lady like Juliette who is often afraid to speak for herself or offer up information even if it’s being asked for or she feels ridiculous for not speaking up. I think that having a person like her as a role model is great; even if she isn’t perfect, it’s easy to see how she’s testing the surface and making her way now as her own person.

I’d recommend this series to anyone! I love the characters so much . . even if the only complaint I have is the whole thing between Warner and Juliette, that I didn’t warm up to until near the end of the book. Other than that this book was as great and gripping as I’d hoped it would be and now I can’t wait to read more!!

Reminiscent of the Elizabeth Smart case, Pretty Girl-13 is a disturbing and powerful psychological mystery about a girl who must piece together the story of her kidnapping and captivity.

Angie Chapman was thirteen years old when she ventured into the woods alone on a Girl Scouts camping trip. Now she’s returned home…only to find that it’s three years later and she’s sixteen-or at least that’s what everyone tells her.

What happened to the past three years of her life?

Angie doesn’t know.

But there are people who do — people who could tell Angie every detail of her forgotten time, if only they weren’t locked inside her mind. With a tremendous amount of courage, Angie embarks on a journey to discover the fragments of her personality, otherwise known as her “alters.” As she unearths more and more about her past, she discovers a terrifying secret and must decide: When you remember things you wish you could forget, do you destroy the parts of yourself that are responsible?

Liz Coley’s alarming and fascinating psychological mystery is a disturbing – and ultimately empowering page-turner about accepting our whole selves, and the healing power of courage, hope, and love.

review :

I found this book so intriguing mostly because of the psychological aspect presented in the summary. And it was so much more! Usually books involving amnesia can feel a little overdone but in Pretty Girl-13 Angie needs to piece her memories together because she has DID, dissociative identity disorder. Her “alters” are the parts of her that experienced the past three years of her life and, even though terrible things happened to her then, she needs to put together the past or risk letting her kidnapper go free.

There were so many different pieces of the plot happening simultaneously that there was never a dull moment! Angie is struggling within herself as well as the new memories she’s dredged up. While that’s happening she’s trying to become comfortable in normal life again, in a town that knows she’s been gone and has only just returned.

Angie is a great main character. She’s strong and resilient; she’s kept herself alive throughout that terrible ordeal and now is finding the strength to continue her life. Some parts of the novel are hard to read, especially as Angie’s past is uncovered, but I think that it’ll be important for as many people to read this book as possible. It’s powerful and moving, more than I expected, and the message really lingers. There are horrible people in the world but there are also ways to make sure that they won’t hurt anyone else anymore. Angie chooses not to let her past define her; I think that’s one of her best attributes.